Down in the fluorescent-lit hell of the Arashiyama PD, Z hunched over her laptop.
The acrid stench of burnt coffee and stale sweat mingled with the ever-present hum of outdated air conditioning, reeking of bureaucratic misery.
She gritted her teeth, her multi-colored eyes flickering with barely contained irritation as she tried to drown out the incessant chatter of her fellow rookie enforcers.
'Fucking amateurs,' she thought, her fingers echoing off the grimy keyboard. 'Can't they see we're all circling the same drain here?'
'But no, they had to prattle on about their latest busts and botched patrols, as if any of it mattered in this cesspit of a city.'
Just like she thought, the bombing case had been shoved far under the desk by their superiors, never to be brought up again.
No body wanted a taste of the inconvenience of going up against the Digital Swarm. It was that simple.
Just as Z archived the case file of the bombing of the lovebirds, her laptop pinged. The sound cut through the din like a lifeline in the sea of mind-numbing paperwork and noisy partners.
"What do we have here," She muttered.
With a few deft clicks, she conjured what looked like a bounty feed onto the holographic table, its ghostly blue light casting eerie shadows across her sharp features. The projection sprang to life like a ghost silencing the room.
Z allowed herself a small smirk of satisfaction. 'Finally, something to shut them up.'
"Holy shit," Blake breathed, leaning in close enough to fog the projection with his meat-breath. His eyes, wide as saucers, reflected the scrolling data.
"Is that for real?"
Not to be outdone in the stating-the-obvious department, Sam strained to read the headlines. "Kyōka-gumi actually took the bait? They're coming out of hiding?"
"Looks like it!" Blake replied, his voice pitched high with excitement. "It's about time we got an epic twist to spice up our day."
Z resisted the urge to slam his face into the hologram as her fingers flew across the keyboard with a blur of motion, scrolling through the flood of comments.
"Not exactly," she muttered, her mismatched eyes narrowing to predatory slits. The faint glow from the holographic display cast an eerie light on her sharp cheekbones. "Looks like they're playing it smart. Why do the dirty work yourself when you can get every desperate schmuck in the city to do it for you?"
Z leaned back into her seat, adjusting her half-cami bra beneath her tank top, barely containing the monumental b-cups she chested.
In the middle of her ajustments, her gaze caught many eyes tearing off her tits in time, but Sam looked so transfixed, he was a moment too late.
His face cracked into a disgraceful smile.
"Perverts," Z muttered, dismissing the thought and going back to the matter at hand.
Kyōka-gumi had just thrown a match into the powder keg of Arashiyama's underworld. And here she was, stuck in this shithole precinct, watching it all unfold like some twisted spectator sport.
"But won't that just piss off the Swarm even more?" Glenn said, scratching his head with a meaty hand. His expression of utter bewilderment would have been comical if it wasn't so damn pathetic.
"That's probably the point, dumbass. The mirror flower guild ain't stupid. They are giving the digital Swarm a taste of their own medicine. And knowing Swarm for its reckless abandon, they will probably jump at any chance to infiltrate Kyōka-gumi since drawing them out isn't working." Peter snorted, perfectly encapsulating Z's feelings towards Glenn's lack of intuition.
As the others debated the implications, Z tuned them out, her focus laser-sharp on the data before her.
She could feel it in her bones – this was big, possibly the break she'd been waiting for. A chance to claw her way out of this fluorescent purgatory and into something that actually mattered.
To her, joining the enforcers was a means to and end. She needed her eyes and ears in places with valuable intel.
Z's lips curled into a mirthless smile.
'Let them tear each other apart.' she thought. 'I'll be there to pick up the pieces – and find a way to burn this whole fucking system to the ground.'
___
Ned stood amidst the bustling crowd, sweat beading on his forehead in the sweltering afternoon heat. His eyes were glued to the tantalizing carrot dangling right in front of his face.
'Probably all horseshit,' He thought, 'but a man's got to eat.'
Just as he was about to tear his gaze away, a system notification burst into view like a slap to his face:
[New Quest received!]
[Quest description: Take out the clown and claim the bounty]
[Quest reward: An instant level-up]
[Bonus reward: ????]
"Well, shit," Ned muttered, a grin spreading across his face. "Great minds think alike, eh?"
The prospect of claiming that juicy bounty had already set his mind racing, and now, to hype him up even further, the promise of an instant level-up? A chance to get stronger?
That was the kind of shit dreams were made of in Deadlock. And that mysterious bonus reward? It was like an itch under his ball, one he couldn't scratch, driving him mad with curiosity.
Meanwhile, the air in the arcade opposite Ned's current location was thick with the scent of stale sweat, punctuated by the noises of beeps, bloops, and synthetic explosions from a hundred different games.
Tyson lounged against a row of machines, every inch the smug bastard as his eyes fixed on Beatrix's petite 'chesticles' like a predator sizing up its prey.
"Come on, butterfly," he sneered. "Why don't you flutter on over here and let a real man show you how it's done?"
Beatrix's fingers tightened around her PDA, knuckles white as bone. "In your dreams, you overgrown insect. I wouldn't touch you with a ten-foot pole covered in shit."
"Haha!"
Tyson's laughter boomed, drowning out the arcade's electronic symphony. "Aw, don't be like that. You know the Butterflies are going nowhere. Why not join the winning team?"
Ignoring his taunts, Beatrix got up to leave, but Tyson's bulk blocked her path like a fleshy wall.
"Where do you think you're going, butterfly?"
Beatrix rolled her eyes so hard she probably saw her own brain. "Where do you think, genius? I'm going to hunt down that clown and claim that bounty."
"Hehe!" Tyson's laughter grated like sandpaper on her nerves. "Oh, that's rich. You really are as dumb as you look, aren't you?"
"Excuse me?" Beatrix's growled, her anger reaching its boiling point.
"It's a trap, you idiot," Tyson sneered, spelling it out like he was talking to a particularly slow child.
"Kyōka-gumi's not just trying to rat out the clown, they're counting on your desperate attempt to lure them out. Think about it, you've failed to poke the bear, and right after that, they give you a chance to infiltrate their ranks. This sounds like a trap to me. Your precious Binary Butterflies are walking right into it."
Beatrix's lips curled into a smirk that didn't quite reach her eyes.
"Shows what you know, cicada boy. Unlike you and your cicada brethren, we aren't shortsighted. We've got it all planned out. In fact, we're counting on Kyōka-gumi showing up to play."
She brushed past him, the stench of his cologne making her want to gag. This time, Tyson didn't try to stop her. Instead, he started chuckling, the sound growing more unhinged by the second, like a man teetering on the edge of sanity.
"Shortsighted?" he called after her, gesturing through the glass, at the crowd gathering beneath the bounty display across the street. "Oh, butterfly, you have no idea."
Beatrix paused, hand on the door, every muscle in her body screaming at her to keep walking or else she would lose it. "What the hell are you on about now?"
Tyson's grin was wide enough to split his face, a Cheshire cat with delusions of grandeur.
"If I were you, I wouldn't set one foot outside."
"Oh yeah?" Beatrix scoffed, bravado masking the unease creeping up her spine. "And why's that? You gonna try something? Because let me remind you, touch me, and it's war. You're not that stupid... are you?"
Tyson's laughter reached a fever pitch, bordering on hysteria. He sprawled in a nearby booth, gesturing grandly toward the glass walls like a demented ringmaster.
"Be my guest, butterfly. Let's see just how shortsighted we really are."
Beatrix's retort died on her lips as she turned to look. Out on the street, something bizarre was unfolding, a scene straight out of a nightmare.
People were pulling identical clown masks from pockets, bags, and thin air, slipping them over their faces with eerie synchronicity.
Ned, still standing in the midst of the crowd, felt his stomach drop to his shoes.
"What the actual fuck?" he muttered, backing away as masked figures closed in around him, a sea of identical, leering faces.
Inside the arcade, Beatrix's jaw nearly hit the floor, her mind struggling to process the surreal scene before her. Tyson was cackling like a madman, clearly relishing her shock.
"You know, you look pretty when you're completely blindsided," he taunted, his voice a mix of cruel amusement and something darker.
Meanwhile, Beatrix's mind raced, trying to make sense of the chaos unfolding before her. Tyson's smug voice cut through her thoughts like a knife.
"See, with everyone on the streets looking like the clown who offed those Kyōka-gumi lovebirds, their bounty's about as useful as tits on a bull," he explained, his tone dripping with condescension.
"They'll have no choice but to come out of hiding and handle this shit themselves. And that, my dear butterfly, is how you draw out a ghost."
Out on the street, the insanity only escalated.
Vehicles screeched to a halt.
Even the sleek aeromobile buses descending from the sky seemed to be joining the madness, as they found impromptu landing spots amidst the sea of clowns.
Their doors flew open to disgorge more masked figures.
And now, literally everyone on the street wore the same face.
***